Indy speeds slashed in testing

In the first test for the 3-litre engines which will be used in next month's Indianapolis 500, none of the eight drivers who took part could top 217 mph - a whole 14mph slower than last year's pole speed of 231.725mph by Helio Castroneves.

Although it was extremely windy at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the track was quite 'green', the consensus was that dropping from 3.5-litres to three litres would, indeed, help return speeds to a reasonable number by May.

"I think the IRL's target was 223 but the speeds turned today were exactly what we projected," said Lee White, general manager of Toyota Racing Development. "Our projection was 217-218 and the guys who ran 217 were pretty trimmed out. We feel the speeds will be a little bit higher by May but I would be very surprised if anyone ran over 220mph."

Defending IRL champion Scott Dixon, Sam Hornish and Castroneves all ran their Toyotas 217mph on a brisk, sunny day that saw the winds gusting to 30mph. Buddy Rice and Dan Wheldon unofficially turned 216 in Honda power while Tomas Scheckter clocked 214 using a Chevrolet.

The intent to slow speeds came six months after Tony Renna lost his life in a violent accident at Turn 3 that remains unexplained.

"Obviously, they're trying to slow speeds for safety and it looks like today's test showed that," said Rice. "I think when everybody gets a handle on their cars, I think you'll see the speeds come back up. We'll just have to wait and see how much more."

The 2001 Toyota Atlantic champion only noticed the reduction in one place: "You could definitely feel the difference in acceleration across the short chutes but the corner speeds didn't feel too terribly different."

White, whose company is likely to power 12 cars in May, was pleased with the overall debut.

"We haven't done a lot in terms of development and we've still got a lot of work to do," he said. "All in all it was a pretty good start and we didn't have any failures. And slowing the speeds, I don't think that's a bad thing at all."